Serendipity and an evening with Mary Chapin Carpenter

I can hardly believe I'm sitting on the lawn in Denver's Botanical Gardens about to hear Mary Chapin Carpeter in concert! Brother Des will be so jealous! He loves her music and I know he's been to see her in Dublin.
Yesterday (Thursday) in Boulder, we saw advertising for her concert there to take place on Sat. Tickets were around $50. However the timing wasn't going to work out for us as we had hoped to have left Boulder by then. But in a local newspaper I happened to read that she would be at Denver's Botanical Gardens on Friday at 6.30pm, no mention of ticket prices or any other details.
So today, after completing a hike in Eldorado Canyon near Boulder, we continued our intended route towards Denver, and decided to drive to the Gardens just to check out the situation in the off chancethat we might get lucky. As we approached the venue around 5pm, traffic was congested and there were throngs of people looking for parking and starting to line up with their lawn chairs and coolers, some with tickets in their hands. So I began to realize that the chances of getting in were slim to none. Oh well, it was worth a try.
Anyway, we found a spot where Frank could wait in the car while I went and inquired about tickets. Staff at the office door informed me that the show was sold out,but to wait and see what she could do. A lady disappeared into the building and came back with two tickets in her hand! I couldn't believe it. And they were FREE! She explained that it was general seating, you sat on the lawn "in the round" and you could check out the gardens if you wanted to.
So here we are, in this beautiful setting on a warm June evening, watching as the opening act performs, seeing folks around us enjoying elaborate picnics with bottles of wine. Some are obviously experienced festival-goers with their low chairs and even special metal spiral wine-glass holders with a spike that sticks into the ground! Never saw that before! Frank and I are a little less prepared, but we do have our blanket, one left-over cold spolumbo sausage, a couple of tomatoes and our water bottles. But we are here!





The concert turned out to be great. Mary was engaging and funny, and did some newer stuff as well as her well known hits. We had a wonderful time.

Comments

  1. UnknownJune 24, 2018 at 9:53 AM

    That is awesome Daphne, someone I would love to see too! Your blog is great, I feel like I am travelling with you. Safe travels my friend!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJune 24, 2018 at 9:55 AM

    This is Karen by the way, not sure how to tell whether I am doing this right either :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownJune 24, 2018 at 10:43 AM

    Yes brother Des is so jealous! An evening with Mary Chapin Carpenter is always such a delight, she is so entertaining, comes across as very human and "normal!" And of course a wonderful artist, such a great catalogue of songs. I'll just point out that I've seen her in Dublin, Galway, then she came and played for us right here in Ballincar (not quite in our house but just across the field in the Radisson!)
    And the last place that Elisa and I saw her in was in the grand surroundings of The National Concert Hall in Dublin. Elisa loves her music too, and of course we chose her beautiful song "We travelled so far" as our First Dance at our wedding. Next time we go to see her in concert I'd love to get a letter to her back-stage making her aware of this fact, I think she'd be chuffed!!

    ReplyDelete

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